Chapter 57 – A Disruption of Impossibility

Adam’s heart sunk when he heard the voice and sweat broke out of his back. He’d instantly realized who stood next to him.

Caine.

He grabbed Adam by the neck, pulled him down and tore his mask off. Adam tensed up for a fight until he heard Caine laugh.

“By Aves, it is you! Come here, you old pellet-head!” Caine pressed his fist on top of Adam’s head and messed up his hair, laughing like a schoolboy who was finally reunited with his favourite toy.

Rage at all Caine had done to him flared up within Adam. Breathing deeply, he forced himself to calm down. No! He can’t know I’m here!

The young Caine grabbed Adam’s shoulders and smiled broadly up at him. “Still just as slow, ha! But why didn’t you tell me you were coming over? You…” Caine’s brows furrowed; his gaze darted over Adam’s face in increasing confusion.

Emily and Oliver stood several feet behind Caine, gesturing with hasty, irritated movements at Adam to get out.

“You look older, somehow,” Caine said slowly. “Glad you’ve finally taken a haircut, but what happened to your eyes?” Caine widened his eyes in recognition. “Did the Pure do something to you, was it the Prophet?” he whispered as he laid a reassuring hand on Adam’s shoulder.

Adam instinctively wanted to jerk back. In an effort of pure will, he clenched his jaws together and forced himself to smile. Caine had the gall to look genuinely worried for him. One part of Adam prevented himself from punching Caine with all his might, another part was strangely touched by Caine’s concern. Maybe he wasn’t a fiend yet at this point in time.

“I’m working on an investigation,” Adam said as calmly as possible. “I’ll explain later.” He moved away.

Caine’s stared in astonishment, his eyes showing white all around, while small jerking movements occurred in his face. “But you can’t be here,” Caine said. “Not now, looking like that, I mean, not yet. Wait… what is happening?!”

All people beside Adam, Emily, Oliver, and Caine himself instantly froze in their tracks. A strange, rushing sound like a storm erupted around them. Sharp scents flared up and disappeared again. The Green Hare’s interior kept shifting and changing: banners and paintings that had once hung on the wall, appeared and disappeared again to be replaced with newer ones. The old bar, as it was before the renovations, appeared in place of the new one, and rapidly aged before their eyes.

Caine’s face and limbs convulsed as if they moved beyond his control. His face aged in seconds, then became younger again. “What’s happening?!” his voice echoed through the room, unnaturally magnified.

Adam ran towards Oliver and Emily and together they tried to get to the exit. “I think the memory is unstable!” Adam exclaimed as he tried to elbow his way through the mass of people, who stood still as statues. “The Caine from this memory realized I couldn’t be here at this time!”

With an open mouth, Emily stared at the lights around them that flickered in alternating colours. “So, the whole memory is messed up? Because he realizes it couldn’t have happened in this way? Or is this normal if the memory is changed?”

Oliver’s face was red and contorted with anger. “How can an intelligent man like you be so stupid?!” he spat out. “Talking to Catherine! Bumping into Caine while I did all I could to keep everything under control!”

“I shouldn’t have done that, I know,” Adam said through gritted teeth, damn tired of being talked down to but aware that Oliver was right. “But you’re not free of blame either! Who touched Sloan and made us visible, eh? Despite me pulling your ass away?”

“Stop it! Both of you!” Emily said, pushing one of the masked guests away. The man fell down as stiff as a statue, rolling over in the exact same position. “Focus on getting back to the Node!”

Outside the Green Hare and the memory of the Fiendswell Night, the lights weren’t flickering anymore. The buildings stayed as they were. However, day had turned to night somehow and the streets were strangely deserted.

A shiver ran down Adam’s spine as he walked over the roads of the old city centre, on which people should be found all through the night. Now, a strange unnatural silence enveloped them. The only sounds were their panting breaths and echoing footsteps as they made their way to the Grand Square.

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Adam couldn’t remember ever entering the Grand Square so relieved, yet so unnerved. Not a soul walked across the open space. There wasn’t a gust of wind. Only the stars, the moon, and the flickering orange lights of the street lanterns lit the deathly silent expanse of tiles and buildings.

On one side, next to the tall wooden burial poles of Dorenland’s heroes, was their way back to the Node: the green glowing spiral, with a circular depiction of the Realm of Remembrance around it.

“It’s still there!” Oliver said and sighed in relief, mumbling a small prayer.

Suddenly, a dimly glowing wall of Ironglass was conjured in front of them. From the left, a dark cloud, consisting of the howling faces of humans and animals, blew towards them. Adam, Emily, and Oliver quickly jumped back to dodge it. Adam bared his teeth, already knowing whose voices he would hear.

And there, from the shadows beside the engraved wooden columns to the right of the spiral, came the one man Adam had thought about most in the Realm. The one man he used to love as a brother, yet now hated with every inch of his being.

“Found you,” Caine said emotionlessly. The bluish-white shine of his Ironglass Invocation cast shadows across his fatigued face. Somehow, after spending time in the Realm, it was strange to see the older Caine from the present again. His eyes, underlined with dark rings, burned with a cold anger.

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“I told you I’d come after you, no matter what,” Desdemona said, every word drenched in venom. She strode from the shadows to the left of the spiral, drawing her savage, red blade.

Adam, Oliver, and Emily took their fighting stances as Caine and Desdemona moved in front of them. Despite the bitter need to give Caine what he was due, Adam tried to keep his head cool and weighed their poor odds. Desdemona didn’t show any new sign of injury after she had taken all three of them on at Eulenschloss. And although Caine was a piece of shit, it didn’t stop him from being competent enough to find a way inside his own Realm.

Adam clenched his fists. No matter, I’m tired of running. Eric, Cath, this is for you.

“Look who finally came out to play!” Adam said, spreading his arms wide as if to embrace Caine. The beats of his left heart spread heat like liquid fire through his veins. “Ain’t that my good old friend! Disappointed, are we? That your Thalers, Roots, and whatever messed up misery living in your Realm couldn’t kill us?”

“How dare you do this to us?” Emily shrieked with a quiver of agony in her voice.

Caine’s yellow eyes smouldered. “How I could do this to you?” He shivered in rage. “So, you genuinely believe that I wanted all of you in here? Invading my Realm of Remembrance, adjusting my memories?”

“We know you needed us gone, Caine!” Oliver screamed. “When we found out you’re a Pendulum you said yourself that we’ve become too much of a threat! Tell me, are you controlling our physical bodies right now like the Pure? Did your buddy the Prophet teach you that? Or are our bodies gone as well to remove any evidence?”

“I trusted you with my life, Caine!” Adam laughed through gritted teeth, shaking his head. “How stupid I was. All those women you’ve bragged about through the years, just objects of lust for you, eh? How could I think a Fell-handed fiend like you wouldn’t go around my back and Taint my dear wife?” He pointed a quivering finger at Caine and roared. “And my boy, my precious boy, he’s innocent from whatever you have against us! And you messed up his mind anyhow!”

Desdemona raised an eyebrow. “Really now?” she asked with a low growl in her voice. “That’s what happened?”

“I’m tired of hearing those filthy lies again and again!” Caine spat, his face turning red. “Oliver, Emily, how can you trust him, while you know the Crimson Urges have turned him into a madman long ago? You saw how he was during the War of the Prophet and he’s gotten even worse! Don’t you see that he’s using you both to learn about Reminiscence from my memories? He planned all of this!”

“After he screwed over this entire city and all its defenders,” Desdemona said with a rumbling growl in her voice. Her eyes never left Adam’s.

“Oh, now I understand!” Oliver laughed humourlessly, red-faced in anger. “We should trust the man who laughed in the face of the Starwing Order while working for the Penduli! We saw you inside your house, asshole! Or was that one of Adam’s ‘tricks?’ We heard you dreaming of using the Prophet’s sorcery for the ‘greater good.’ So, tell me, was the Pure’s euphoria worth it to betray your friends?”

Caine furiously pointed sideways. “Zachalynn turned the Starwing Order into a corrupt instrument of oppression!” he exclaimed, his face twitching in frustration. “But you’re too busy chasing promotions to see the strings on your wrists! Only the Penduli can dethrone her and make sure people can live their lives the way they want! Ugh, but you don’t see that. I can imagine Adam didn’t even need to Taint you to turn you against me.” Caine furiously raised a finger at Emily. “And you! You know the Penduli don’t cooperate with the Pure and never have! Why do you still support…” He stopped and his eyes flicked towards Adam’s and Oliver’s shocked expressions. Caine laughed. “Oh really, you didn’t tell them?”

Adam gritted his teeth and looked at the woman to the left of him. The woman who obviously tried to keep a straight face under Adam’s glare, although the shiver in her mouth betrayed other, hidden emotions. The woman with her beautiful chestnut hair. The one he almost kissed. Adam remembered how surprisingly open she was to talk about Instinct, compared to Oliver. How she didn’t seem surprised at the utter corruption of Zachalynn’s Holy Council, and had even said Caine was right when he talked up to them. How she hated Caine for what he did, but had never spoken a bad word about the Penduli. The inevitable conclusion was as welcome as a dagger to the throat. “You’re a Pendulum as well, aren’t you?” he asked softly, with a low rumbling growl in his voice.

Emily had the gall to try and appear innocent, looking at both of him and Oliver with those big orange eyes, filled with clearly feigned confusion. With the slightest hint of a quiver in her legs, she took a step back. Then, suddenly, her eyes hardened and she clenched her hands into shivering fists of anger. Her mask had fallen. “Yes, I am, and how can you judge me for that?!” she snarled. “You’ve seen what Zachalynn has become! You’ve experienced the discrimination yourself and heard the insane drivel those lunatics use to justify it! I refuse to be a pawn in their twisted games of power.”

“You might’ve told us,” Adam growled. He adjusted his stance; twisting his body a bit and holding his arms up to be ready for an attack from the left. Ready for an attack from one of the few people in this world he’d felt safe to be around. “With all your drivel about trust!” Please, Emily, please don’t make me do this.

Emily shifted her stance as well. “What choice did I have?! In order to cooperate with you and Oliver who had just been attacked by Penduli? Caine betrayed me just as he betrayed you!” She turned towards Caine, her voice quivering in rage. “I heard people within the Penduli were ‘cleaning up’ and I couldn’t believe it. But out of everyone, I never thought you would stoop that low.” Her voice dropped to a barely audible hiss. “Assassins? After your own sister?”

“Surprised that the bloody Penduli betrayed you?” Adam asked with all the poison and sarcasm he could muster. “You were a double agent just like Caine! How do we know you’ve not been working with him behind our backs all this time?”

Emily’s face reddened. “I’d never do that!”

Adam tried to read her face, to see what happened behind those bright orange eyes. He wanted to believe her so badly, yet the wound and the anger her lie had left were too deep. Adam groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. Is this how it’s going to be? Three on their side, versus me and Oliver?

Caine looked at Emily, a hint of desperation in his eyes. “Emily, please, I know we’ve had... arguments in the past. About the mansion, about mom and dad. I know I’ve been a dick before and I’ve been wanting to make it up for so long. Nobody is ‘cleaning up’ within the Penduli.” He exhaled and closed his eyes for a moment. “And I’d never send assassins after you. Those ‘Penduli’ in the Starwing Grove must’ve been Tainted or impostors.”

Caine turned to Oliver and smiled with a veil of tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Oliver. I always hoped we could remain friends, despite our differing beliefs. I tried everything to keep us from fighting each other. And even though you’re loyal to the Starwing Order, I’ve never wanted to hurt you.” Caine sighed deeply. “We are victims. We never had to fight, but we’ve been brought together in a sickening plot.”

Caine shivered, and slowly those trusted yellow eyes turned towards Adam. “You…” he said softly, as if he barely believed his own words. Then his eyelids flinched in rage. “You planned all of this!” Caine roared, pointing a quivering finger. The air around Caine shimmered in barely constrained power, waves of cold radiated from him. “You and Oliver appeared at my house at precisely the right moment! Just before those ‘Penduli’ attacked Emily! And what a coincidence; there’s an Invocation prepared in the same room to transport you to my Realm of Remembrance!” Caine laughed. “So, you investigate how the Realm of Remembrance works! Supposedly to escape, but actually to find out what I know about Reminiscence. Why? Because that’s the key weapon to defeat the Penduli! That’s why the Tainted appear everywhere!” Caine breathed deeply and looked at Emily and Oliver. “I used to love Adam as a brother, I did. But we can’t ignore the Devil that he’s become.”